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British Library Puts Oldest Surviving Bible Online
Peace Corps Library writes "BBC reports that about 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible, the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript, have been recovered and put on the Internet. 'The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures,' says Dr. Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. 'This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation.' The New Testament of the Codex Sinaiticus appears in Koine Greek, the original vernacular language, and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. For 1,500 years, the Codex Sinaiticus lay undisturbed in a Sinai monastery until it was found in 1844 and split between Egypt, Russia, Germany, and Britain. It is thought to have survived because the desert air was ideal for preservation and because the monastery, on a Christian island in a Muslim sea, remained untouched, its walls unconquered. The British Library is marking the online launch of the manuscript with an exhibition which includes a range of historic items and artifacts linked to the document. 'The availability of the virtual manuscript for study by scholars around the world creates opportunities for collaborative research that would not have been possible just a few years ago.'"
1600 years old, from earlier manuscripts that pre-date Constantine's adoption of Christianity as a state religion.
It has no mention of a resurrection.
For example, St Mark's Gospel ends 12 verses before later, revised, versions - omitting the appearance of the resurrected Jesus Christ.
The incorporation of Osiris/Attys/Adonis/Mithras cultism, which dominated the eastern empire with it's symbolic resurrection theology was key to the success of Constantine's venture. It was so deeply held a belief, the bishops under Constantine may not even have realized they were fabricating and innovating.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
The text of Sinaiticus has been reviewed by scholars already and is part of the critical apparatus used to construct the UBS and NA modern Greek texts of the New Testament. Never mind that we also have manuscripts of individual books that predate even Sinaiticus by 200 years. This is an interesting development in terms of making the text more broadly available, but the impact of Sinaiticus on the actual translations we use today has already happened.
From the standpoint of textual criticism and biblical translation this is a non-story. From the standpoint of broad accessibility this is a great development. Remember that serious scholars have been able to get facsimiles for this text for years...
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
Sinaiticus is arguably one of the most important discoveries in the history of the textual transmission of the New Testament. Add an exciting controversy involving either idiot Greek monks who had quite literally dumped it in the wastepaper bin or a conniving Russian manuscript hunter-turned-thief making up lies to cover his crimes and you've got a great story that never fails to turn up fundraising dollars.
That said, I wish they could produce software for the examination of the codex that doesn't suck. But because they refuse to release the database of manuscript photos for public download (even though, at least in the United States, those images are uncopyrightable and therefore in the public domain) enterprising folks like me can't build a better system and give it away to people. So you have to suffer with their terrible system if you want to examine the manuscript. It's typical conservator behavior, building unnecessary walls against access to information that should be free.
We really really need to start making sure that digital copies of the ancient literary patrimony are available for free with no conditions -- i.e., in the public domain, but apparently everyone is too interested in fighting for scarce research grant dollars to produce something that all of their academic competitors could use.
If you look into 1 Timothy, chapter 3 -
"2: A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3: Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4: One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
5: (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)"
you will see that it was not the intention of the church founders that priests should be celibate.
Actually, it does. 1 Timothy 4:
I'm not trying to bash the Catholics here, but it would seem that people that forbid marrying for priests and meat on Fridays is not really where you want to be.
The Apostle Paul VOLUNTARILY went unmarried because of his faith, but even commented that others would probably be unable to do so, and should marry rather than commit sexual sin. At no time did he criticize married believers such as Peter.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I know you are joking, but the Bible says nothing about priests or celibacy. That was invented by the catholic church
The Catholic Church decided the canon of the bible. If you're going to recognize their authority to do that, why wouldn't you also recognize their authority on other matters?
I find that I have a much more positive view of the Catholic Church as an agnostic than I did as a protestant.
No, what they reveal is the tremendous accuracy of today's modern translations compared to the papyrii and codeces of antiquity. After all, consider the state of Christianity in the first few centuries A.D. - a bunch of "heretics", hated by the Jews, persecuted by the Romans, and driven underground. It was in that environment that the gospels and letters of Paul, Peter, John, etc. were copied, distributed, re-copied, distributed some more, etc.
Were there transcription errors? Sure. You try copying something the size of the Bible in secret, by hand, while fearing for your life! But we can reconstruct the original readings of the books of the NT with tremendous accuracy.
Your insistence that Christians must equate "the literal word of God" with "infallible transcriptions, every single time a book of the Bible is copied" is just plain wrong. That's not what most Christians believe. They believe that the method God used to preserve the text was to have it copied quickly and widely before any single organization could control the process and make "secret" alterations to the Scripture. (Conspiracy theorists who hint darkly about secret councils that burned books or suppressed certain ancient Christian beliefs tend to forget that, even if that was possible, there were no such organizations or counsels like that for many, many centuries . Compare that with Uthman Ibn Affan, who decided which copy of the Qur'an would be canonical, then gathered together and burning all other copies that differed from the official version. Christianity has nothing like that.
In warning against those who forbid people to marry, St. Paul was referring to Gnostics who taught dualism which viewed material things as bad, and thus rejected marriage and procreation. He was not referring to the Christian practice of celibacy which recognizes the great good of marriage but "have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:12).
Celibacy is a charism, a gift given by God for the building up of the Body of Christ. It is not given to all ("Whoever can accept this, ought to accept it" (Matthew 19:12). Speaking of his own celibacy, St. Paul says, "I wish that all were as I myself am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another" (1 Cor 7:7).
In the Catholic Church, celibacy is imposed on no one. Rather, in the western rites of the Catholic Church, candidates for the priesthood are chosen from those who have freely promised celibacy. In the eastern rites, candidates for the priesthood are chosen from both married and celibate men, but bishops are chosen only from celibate priests.
Fr. Terry Donahue, CC
It survived because : [Source - http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/charter1.html%5D In 628 C.E. Prophet Muhammad (s) granted a Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. It consisted of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including such topics as the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement, freedom to appoint their own judges and to own and maintain their property, exemption from military service, and the right to protection in war. An English translation of that document is presented below. This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).
The Johanneum Comma, for one.
The establishment of the Trinity didn't show up really until the Textus Receptus, the bastardized text based on many, many later manuscripts, and the text on which the King James Version was based. Prior to this (and ALL, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, old manuscripts agree), the passage:
1 John 5:7-8
5:7 "[...] in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
5:8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, [...]"
simply does not exist.
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True, religion has destroyed so much; however, much much more has been destroyed by the anti- or non-religious (e.g., Stalin's Communism or Nazism {even though Nazis called themselves Christians, the atrocities of the Nazis were not done "in the name of religion" other than trying to eliminate those of particular belief sets and/or religions [most prominently Jewish]}).
Modern democracy is based on Judeo-Christian principles. I'll quote from an insightful essay on the matter:
"It is this point that I wish to make, and it is also one of the points made by Nietzsche in his Master-Slave morality, that the concept of equality, of legal, political and social equality is derived from Judeo-Christian morality. As Nietzsche puts it in Section 202 of his book Beyond Good and Evil, 'the Democratic movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement.'" (http://quantumleap42.blogspot.com/2009/06/religious-origins-of-our-democratic.html)
For every bad thing done in the name of religion, I can counter with many more good things done in the name of religion. We shouldn't resort to straw man arguments.
I do not live in Denmark but I too am glad that the Danish government did not bow to pressure from extremist Muslims. Besides, Islamic terrorists hold a very twisted view of Islam that very few other Muslims hold. What the few do that's negative in the name of religion should not reflect on broader religious beliefs. That's like focusing only on what America "destroys" while completely ignoring all the good that comes from America (this example holds true for Denmark as well).
http://www.hereticalideas.com/2009/06/book-review-misquoting-jesus-by-bart-ehrman/
More saliently, Ehrman notes other portions of the Bible that appeared to have been subtly altered in order to combat specific heresies. Particularly, alterations were made in order to counter heresies that contended that Jesus was part of a trinity and was, in fact, the Son of God. Here's one example:
A similar phenomenon happens a few verses later in the account of Jesus as a twelve-year-old in the Temple. The story line is familiar: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus attend a festival in Jerusalem, but then when the rest of the family heads home in the caravan, Jesus remains behind, unbeknowst to them. As the text says, "his parents did not know about it." But why does the text speak of his parents when Joseph is not really his father? A number of textual witnesses [later texts - Ed.] "correct" the problem by having the text read, "Joseph and his mother did not know it."
It's significant to note that both the King James version and the New King James version of the Bible both repeat this alteration in the text. This is significant because these translations are probably the most widely used among American evangelicals. They are also, as Ehrman notes, based on some very bad Greek texts due to the paucity of available Greek manuscripts at the time.
There are many examples of changes in the text. The version of Genesis which has two creation stories has been all but removed from modern Bibles, though it was present in the 50s and 60s. This is not new - Church leaders have hidden the truth from their followers for centuries, but now nearly everyone is literate, so religion is continuing to disappear where people are given the choice. Some notable exceptions would be the middle east, where lack of education and religious fundamentalism are so intertwined it hardly requires comment.
But what else would you expect from a God who waited tens of thousands of years to tell the "truth" to humans, and then gave it to "stupefied, illiterate, bronze age peasants" as Hitchens puts it. Not the smartest move for an omniscient God interested in presenting a coherent religion.
True, religion has destroyed so much; however, much much more has been destroyed by the anti- or non-religious (e.g., Stalin's Communism or Nazism {even though Nazis called themselves Christians, the atrocities of the Nazis were not done "in the name of religion" other than trying to eliminate those of particular belief sets and/or religions [most prominently Jewish]}).
Bullshit. It's amazing how hard christians try to hide the fact that Hitler was a lifelong catholic and so were his followers. Hitler sought -- and received -- support from the catholic church. Later on that proved to be quite an embarrassment for which the church had to apologize.
Stalin is an interesting case. He was educated in a religious primary school and then in a seminary. He gave up his christian faith only to create a state-based religion with him as some sort of demi-god. [Similar examples can be seen in ancient Egypt (pharao was "god"), imperial China, modern North Korea, etc.]
Modern democracy is based on Judeo-Christian principles. I'll quote from an insightful essay on the matter:
Bullshit again. Show me where the bible or torah or whatever advocates a democratic system of government. Don't quote what some guy said about some other guy who wrote some book you never read. You are a christian -- go directly to the supposed source of your values, the bible. The bible I'm familiar with advocates slavery, genocide, torture, rape, collective punishment, human sacrifice, etc.
For every bad thing done in the name of religion, I can counter with many more good things done in the name of religion. We shouldn't resort to straw man arguments.
I would argue that there are far more bad things than good that are done in the name of religion. The chief problem with it is that it requires you to surrender critical thinking. It values unquestioning obedience, even when someone tells you to do something clearly immoral.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Hey, do you mind if I ask you a tangential question since it seems like you know what you're talking about? A while back I ran across some discussion over whether Jesus was an actual historical figure or a mythical one. There's a Wikipedia article with a summary and a much longer article with some more detailed arguments, for instance. Have you heard of any of this, and if so, do you have an opinion on it? I've been hoping to find another point of view, but most of what I've run across is from Christians who seem more interested in defending their faith than anything else.
Visit the
Modern democracy may be based on Judeo-Christian principles. But so were monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, feudal states, slave states, apartheid states, genocidal states, etc.
As much as I dislike religion (I don't think I need to go into why), it is a powerful force for good as well as evil. Just as any human institution can be a powerful force for good or evil. Equal amounts of good and evil are done by the religious and non-religious alike.